UBTECH Tan Min: Humanoid robots are "difficult but correct things" and will open up the next trillion-dollar market | WISE2024 King of Business Conference
From November 28 to 29, the two-day 36Kr WISE2024 Business King Conference was grandly held in Beijing. As an all-star event in the Chinese business field, the WISE Conference has now reached its twelfth edition, witnessing the resilience and potential of Chinese business in an era of constant change.
2024 is a year that is somewhat ambiguous and characterized by more changes than stability. Compared to the past decade, people are slowing down their pace and developing more rationally. 2024 is also a year in search of new economic drivers, and the new industrial changes have placed higher demands on the adaptability of each entity. This year's WISE Conference takes "Hard But Right Thing" as its theme. In 2024, what is the right thing has become a topic we are more eager to discuss.
On that day, Tan Min, the Chief Brand Officer of UBTECH, delivered a speech titled "Humanoid Robots Entering Industrial Manufacturing to Jointly Cultivate New-Quality Productivity".
Tan Min, Chief Brand Officer of UBTECH
The following is the content of the speech, edited and organized by 36Kr:
Good afternoon, friends of 36Kr. I'm Tan Min from UBTECH. Today, I'd like to share some thoughts from UBTECH's nearly 13 years of entrepreneurship. This year's 36Kr WISE Conference annual theme "Hard But Right Thing" particularly aligns with our current situation.
During UBTECH's nearly 13 years of entrepreneurship and continuous investment in humanoid robots, every day has been unimaginably hard. But at the same time, humanoid robots are considered to be the next most disruptive product in human history after computers, smartphones, and new energy vehicles. We also believe that investing in humanoid robots is definitely the right thing to do. Doing this right thing actually contains two key points: First, in a difficult environment, being able to strive to survive; Second, while being down-to-earth, we also need to look to the stars and insist on doing what we dream of.
Returning to my topic today - humanoid robots, many participating guests have asked me, what exactly can humanoid robots do? We are continuously thinking about the commercialization of humanoid robots. Now, an important path we have found is to let humanoid robots enter industrial manufacturing to jointly cultivate new-quality productivity.
Goldman Sachs predicts that by 2035, the market size of humanoid robots will reach 154 billion US dollars, which is at the trillion-yuan level. You can imagine that currently, the frequency of humanoid robots appearing around you is almost zero, but in 10 years, the market size of humanoid robots will experience an unprecedented development. It can be predicted that humanoid robots will become one of the most investment-worthy and largest-scale markets in the next century.
Currently, almost all of the world's highest-valued technology companies have invested in humanoid robots, and their humanoid robots are unanimously entering the factory field. Therefore, we believe that intelligent manufacturing should be the first scenario where humanoid robots are applied on a large scale.
At the beginning of this year, our industrial humanoid robot Walker S entered the final assembly workshop of NIO's second advanced manufacturing base and completed practical training tasks such as vehicle assembly and quality inspection. Then, we iterated on the industrial version of the humanoid robot Walker S series, and the latest generation, Walker S1, has entered the factory of BYD for practical training.
It can be seen that in the commercialization process, currently, 99% of the global humanoid robot enterprises are still in the prototype stage, that is, the first stage. In the second stage, data verification and integration need to be carried out by simulating real scenarios through a simulation platform. The third step is what we call POC (Proof of Concept). Currently, UBTECH has reached the third stage. In the nearly 13 years of entrepreneurship, we have been steadily and gradually moving forward until now. In the field of new-quality productivity represented by humanoid robots, we have accumulated considerable experience and lessons.
Tan Min, Chief Brand Officer of UBTECH
There are many reasons why UBTECH chose to enter the factory field first. In addition to the judgment of the entire industry, we also see that the demand in the industrial manufacturing field is a huge rigid demand. Humanoid robots are not only the core application field of the country's new-quality productivity but also the forefront of global productivity competition.
But at the same time, a question that everyone is concerned about is whether humanoid robots will replace humans? What I want to tell you now is that, first of all, in the significant upgrade process from Made in China to Intelligent Manufacturing in China, the biggest challenge is not technology, but rather the shortage of workers. The "Manufacturing Talent Development Planning Guide" published by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the Ministry of Education points out that the worker gap in the manufacturing industry will reach 30 million by 2025. This means that even before humanoid robots have truly entered the mass production stage, such a huge market already exists in China. It is very certain that this is a huge business opportunity for the humanoid robot industry.
Why are humanoid robots a crucial link in alleviating the supply and demand of the manufacturing industry's workforce? First, although the trend of factory intelligence is significant, in the field of intelligent manufacturing, there is still a significant ratio of 70% to 30%. Currently, whether it is Germany's Industry 4.0 or China's emerging intelligent manufacturing, approximately 70% of the work in factories has achieved a high degree of automation and modularization. This part of the work can basically be completed by using traditional robots such as mechanical arms, and it is close to the ceiling of technological development. However, the remaining 30% of the work shows the characteristics of flexibility and is mainly completed by humans.
For the 30% of the work that is currently difficult for mechanization to handle, it can be further subdivided into two parts in the future. Approximately 20% of the work belongs to the category of high labor intensity, long working hours, and potential harm to the human body (such as high-temperature environments). This part of the work may be too harsh for humans and requires humanoid robots to complete. The remaining 10% is still work that requires human-machine collaboration.
It can be predicted that the future work distribution in factories may further evolve into a 7:3 ratio, or a more specific 7 (fully automated), 2 (completed by humanoid robots), and 1 (human-machine collaboration) allocation. This is an important area where humanoid robots enter the factory and play a key role.
We spent more than a year researching factories and scenarios, and finally reached cooperation with car companies such as BYD, FAW-Volkswagen Qingdao Branch, Geely Automobile, and Dongfeng Liuzhou Automobile. We deployed our humanoid robots to their real production lines for practical training. At the same time, UBTECH has also collaborated with SF Express in the field of smart logistics and Foxconn in the 3C manufacturing field across industries. In the future, humanoid robots will be deployed to their work processes. This is an important milestone in the commercialization of humanoid robots.
UBTECH industrial humanoid robot Walker S1 in practical training at BYD factory (Source: UBTECH)
Then why did these enterprises choose UBTECH? What capabilities of humanoid robots do enterprises value? Based on a long-term investigation, we have summarized five core dimensions, which are understanding the scenario, autonomous ability, dexterous operation, stability and reliability, and mass production and delivery.
At the same time, UBTECH has full-stack technical capabilities. As of June this year, our core technologies of humanoid robots have 2,450 humanoid robot and artificial intelligence patents globally; among them, the valid patents of humanoid robots rank first in the world, which is the advantage of the technical core.
Among the five core dimensions, we particularly attach importance to "understanding the business and grasping the scene requirements", which is also the most valued by car manufacturers. For this reason, the UBTECH Research Institute spent more than a year delving into automotive factories, working with the factory's innovation team and assembly line workers to disassemble and analyze the work scenarios, clarifying which tasks can be completed by humanoid robots and which require human intervention. After that, we ensure that humanoid robots can complete these tasks one by one in virtual simulations and scene experiments.
Second, the autonomy of humanoid robots is crucial. We cannot rely on remote controls to control humanoid robots, and their autonomous decision-making ability is very critical.
Third, dexterous operation is an essential ability of humanoid robots. Humanoid robots need to have dexterous hands like humans, capable of completing tasks such as handling, screwing, spraying, and attaching car logos. This relies on multi-joint dexterous operation and fusion technology. In addition, the stability and reliability of humanoid robots are also indispensable. Can they work stably for a long time? In extreme environments, such as the logistics area of an automotive factory with a temperature exceeding 40 degrees in summer, can they continue to work without malfunction? These are important tests of the stability of humanoid robots.
Finally, the mass production and delivery capability is also of great importance. In an industrial setting, whether humanoid robots can truly liberate humans from high-risk, repetitive, complex, and polluted environments is the core mission of humanoid robots entering the factory. Currently, we are working hard in these areas, and in the future, we will see more and more humanoid robots completing various tasks in factories.
Taking BYD as an example, through the combination of the industrial version of the humanoid robot Walker S1, the industrial mobile robot, the unmanned logistics vehicle, and the intelligent manufacturing management system, we have achieved collaborative operations of indoor and outdoor unmanned logistics, creating a milestone in the industry. The core lies in autonomous operation and collaborative operation, marking our exploration from scratch to use humanoid robots to drive and complete the last 10 meters of unmanned logistics work.
UBTECH industrial humanoid robot Walker S1 in practical training at BYD factory (Source: UBTECH)
Behind the completion of these tasks is our accumulation of embodied intelligence technology, and the core here lies in how to effectively integrate the brain, cerebellum, and torso of the humanoid robot. This involves the achievements of three key technologies.
First, UBTECH has established a multimodal large model system and built the "brain" of the humanoid robot on this basis. Although the application of general large models on humanoid robots is not direct, I believe that establishing an embodied intelligence large model in the vertical domain is an essential core capability for the future industrial landing and development of humanoid robots.
Second, through fusion training, we have successfully combined the data collection of virtual simulation and the real-world physical space. This enables humanoid robots to conduct two-way feedback in a real factory environment and achieve real applications. Among them, the semantic VSLAM navigation technology plays a key role. We have pioneered the use of semantic VSLAM navigation technology globally. By designing a tightly coupled method of semantic perception information and traditional VSLAM, we have achieved a two-stage semantic navigation from coarse to fine, improving the spatial understanding ability of Walker S1 and meeting the generalization needs of industrial scenarios.
Third, for different factory environments, we have adopted a sense-control integrated, end-to-end learning full-body motion control learning framework. This method enables humanoid robots to have the ability of dexterous operation and stable walking in an extremely complex operation process, ensuring the accurate and precise execution of all factory tasks. These three technologies have won the Leading Technology Award at the 2024 World Internet Conference. This is the first time since the establishment of the World Internet Conference that the award has been given to the technological achievements of humanoid robots, and we are very proud of this.
In the future, for the landing of humanoid robots in industrial scenarios, we have also proposed a "three-step" plan. In the first step, we have made a breakthrough in a single vertical factory scene and are currently the humanoid robot company that has entered the most automotive factories for practical training globally. In the second step, we will expand application scenarios across industries. We are now cooperating with logistics and 3C enterprises such as SF Express and Foxconn. We are striding towards the third step. We expect to focus on breaking through 3 - 5 industries within the next 3 - 5 years, allowing humanoid robots to complete 18 - 24 months of practical training on the production line to gradually achieve the mass production plan.
In addition to industrial manufacturing, we also focus on two major scenarios: commercial services and family companionship, and are committed to enabling humanoid robots to not only empower thousands of industries but also enter thousands of households. With humanoid robots as the core technology, we promote commercialization and believe that in the future, we will have the opportunity to share more of our thoughts and experiences in artificial intelligence education, smart logistics, smart health care, commercial services, and consumer-end robots.
This is the "right thing" that UBTECH has been doing until today. Through the platform of 36Kr, I share with you the entrepreneurial journey of UBTECH. Thank you all!